Chapter 1

I sipped my Corona and took in the atmosphere of the night club.

The walls were black, and most of the lighting came from red neon that bathed everything in a bloody glow. Dark nooks and corners abounded, occupied with a strange mixture of serious Goth and trendy night clubbers. Likewise, the club appeared to only hire professional dancers as staff, since they all moved entirely too gracefully to be regular clods like the three of us.

All and all, it just wasn’t my kind of club. But that was just me.

Dark Techno music blasted from every corner, making it a little hard to think.

“Hey Doc, dude, here’s to six months in the homicide division and the end of probation! No more being on the desk all the goddamn time!“ Homicide Detective John Toza exclaimed for the dozenth time, his slurring getting more pronounced with each toast. I had to first steady his hand before I could clink our glasses in celebrations. The man was beyond toasted.

Pella and I had just finished probation with the NYPD and were now eligible for full benefits. Meaning we were homicide detectives. We could actually go to crime scenes and look for the so-called murderers.

Yes, I did find this a tad hypocritical of me.

No more paper work. I would now work actual cases.

Our host for the evening, veteran officer Scott Henderson, single and ever the playa, was charming a pair of young ladies at the bar. He had waved me over several times, but that wasn’t gonna happen. Bad enough that I was out with my brothers in blue; there was no way I’d involve a girl in the minefield of my life.

All I needed was for some woman find out what I really did very few weeks. I could just imagine the woman walking in on me while I was cutting up a body for disposal. Oh yeah, that would go over real well. Being a serial killer isn’t as fun as some people think—especially when you literally work with the people that could catch you.

To tell the truth, I had joined the Police force, two years after college.

I wouldn’t have even bothered if I hadn’t made my Grandfather a promise that I would try to join.

I always tried to keep my promises to the Old Man before he died.

In college, I had taken all the courses that I needed to get a PhD in Forensic Science. I found if you want to become a forensic scientist for the police you should have a four year undergraduate degree in a field like chemistry, biology or related natural science like pre-med, biochemistry or microbiology. Another option is to go for a master’s degree as this will allow for greater career growth.

I also somehow scraped by a PhD in Criminal Justice.

My dumb-ass went for all those classes since I basically started college at 13 years old and didn’t graduate until I was 20 years old. They did an IQ test on me while I was there. To their shock, I scored a 173 on the IQ test. It shocked the hell out of the professors.

Hence the nickname my fellow detectives gave me: Doc. They gave it to me because of the two Doctorates I acquired. They tended to ignore the fact that I also had a master’s degree in Crime Scene Analysis and another Masters in Blood Spatter Analysis as well.

It hadn’t helped when the captain put me on the standard desk duty for the first six months so that I could get a feel for working with the police. If there was one thing that being tied to a desk taught me, it was this: I fucking hate paperwork.

The main obstacle was that I was only 21, almost exactly, when I finished the Police Academy. Because of my doctorates and a couple of master degrees, I was a shoe-in for a detective position. That didn’t stop the captain from making me ride a desk until I could get used to the ins and outs of the Precinct I was currently located at. It was a pain in the ass, but I knew where he was coming from and I didn’t want to make waves.

It just wouldn’t do for the police to find out my second hobby.

What? Are you curious about what kind of illegal hobby I would hide from the boys in blue? Are you surprised that I’m not the goodie-two-shoes you thought I was. Well, tough shit. The surprises will keep coming whether you want them or not.

The things I’m into will blow your fucking mind.

I’ll give you a hint. I’m the guy that collects the trash of the city and deposes of it in as neat a manner as I can get away with. I’m very thorough at what I do too.

Or, without the flowery metaphor, I’m the guy that kills the people that the police just can’t catch or contain. I’m a very neat monster though. I never leave any evidence and I always go after the worst of the worst. What’s the point in going after the weak and helpless civilians when there were real monsters roaming the streets? There’s no challenge in killing normal civilians after all.

New York City was full with these monsters though.

I studied for years to make it so I was virtually undetected. Procedures upon procedures help immensely in this endeavor. This meant that I had to survey a potential target for weeks before I made up my mind. Procedural classes at the college taught me what not to do when you didn’t want any evidence.

Then I had to find the perfect place to do the deed. It wouldn’t do to be interrupted by the police or an ordinary citizen would it? Lastly, I had to find the perfect way to depose the body.

Going to college and learning everything that the police usually used for procedures had helped immensely. Taking away the things they would consider clues were more than vital, it was essential. Like I said, I’m a very neat monster.

I was also a very picky monster.

The monsters I hunted had to be monsters themselves, or I wouldn’t be fulfilled. There was a dark and evil place in my very soul that demanded I picked worthwhile targets. Weaklings and complete innocents just wouldn’t do at all.

It was the way my brain worked. Everything had to be so-so or I would have to start over almost immediately. I suppose you could call it a type of OCD. I just called it pandering to perfection--it had a better ring to it.

I had rules, of course. No women. No children. They held no interest to my darker impulses. I never in my life would understand why some of the monsters in the world would prey on children. It turned my stomach.

I had to push these thoughts out of my head as I listened to my fellow detectives celebrate though. Myself, I was still on my first drink but acted like it was my fifth. In truth, I never understood the necessity of drinking until my cognitive process was severely limited to the point that I couldn’t walk. I was all about control and didn’t like giving it up.

It was another hour before we decided to call it a night.

My colleagues left twenty minutes before I did, all of them drunk.

After this night, I wondered how my life would have turned out if I just left with them. Would things have turned out different? Would things play out different? I guess I would never know.

As it was, I seen a very beautiful girl who was about my age at the bar. She had the most amazing sky blue eyes that I had ever seen in my entire fucking life. It was like they glowed, they shown so much. Blond hair fell down to the middle of her back and she was wearing a blue mini-skirt that seemed almost painted on.

I don’t have to tell you. Her body was something many women would cheerfully kill for. I know it certainly caught my attention. I wasn’t dead after all. I was a man that could appreciate beauty.

I could barely take my eyes off this vision of beauty.

It was when I had just worked up the courage to try my chances that something happened. It was something that set my teeth on edge and made a violent murderous rage come to the forefront of my mind.

The something that happened pissed me off in a major way.

A man that looked like he walked out of a straight up gangster movie, including the cheap suit, grabbed her arm with enough force to bruise and started to drag her out of the nightclub.

That was when the dark side of my soul surged to the front and started showing me several ways to torture the bastard, before finally letting him have the sweet release of Death itself.

Before I knew it, I was on my feet and following them to the back entrance the man lead her to. In a way, I was happy. The place he was going would have no witnesses. With no witnesses, no one could see what I would do to the fucker.

Idly, I knew it was a back alley.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet, you bitch? Alyssa, you belong to Mr. Falcone. You do not prance around in that slutty outfit for just anyone to see! Because of this, Mr. Falcone has instructed me to give you a long overdue lesson,” With that, the overdone Italian wannabe pulled out a six inch bladed knife.

“I’m afraid, Alyssa, that pretty face of yours will have plenty of new scars on it,” the wannabe monster murmured sadistically.

Alyssa backed against the alley wall, white as a sheet.

After seeing this scene, I could really not do anything.

Like I said before—I had a code. I had rules. No unnecessary harm to woman and children. This fell under that umbrella. It didn’t mean I had to like it though. Truthfully, I didn’t like playing the hero. There was never really anything good that immediately came from it.

Rarely would a person get money. And most of the time, the hero would get nothing but more trouble down the line. Most usually kindness was a complication that ended up being a pain in the ass. At least that was my opinion on the whole ordeal.

Another thing that you have to understand—at least to understand my personality somewhat is I usually never feel guilt. I could let this girl get cut up and not feel a lick of guilt. However, there was something stopping that. That something was the Rules and Codes.

When I was younger, I made Rules of Conduct. Part of those rules was not harming women or children. I follow these rules like a Christian would follow the 10 Commandments. The reason for this is that my grandfather helped make up the 10 rules that I must follow almost religiously.

My Grandfather was about the only man I would listen to with rapt attention.

However, enough about my Grandfather for now.

Another option for this situation was that I could flash my homicide badge and scare him off. It would surely work, for a while. In a few days, trouble would come from Mr. Falcone however.

But that too would cause complications. The department had been trying to bust Mr. Falcone for years. If I just scared off the asshole, he would undoubtedly tell his boss. The boss would use his connections with the dirty cops at the precinct, and then Mr. Falcone would likely send people to my house.

That was beyond unacceptable.